Cold War

The Cold War constituted a protracted period of geopolitical tension and ideological struggle that emerged from the ashes of World War II, fundamentally reshaping international relations and domestic societies across the globe.

This era was characterised by a complex interplay of political, economic, and psychological warfare, rather than direct large-scale military conflict between the primary antagonists, the United States and the Soviet Union.

It fundamentally shaped the modern political landscape, fostering an environment where ideology could consume everything, and any questioning of dogma might result in being labelled as evil or getting cancelled.

Origins and Ideological Foundations

Following World War II, the global landscape was redefined by the decline of old empires and the rise of new powers. The United States initially harboured an optimistic belief that human beings were good and that a new age free from European barbarism would dawn, ushered in by institutions like the United Nations.

Within a few years, however, this perspective shifted significantly. A crucial factor in the nascent Cold War was the perception of a formidable Soviet threat. By 1946, Winston Churchill highlighted that an Iron Curtain had descended across the continent, marking the formal commencement of the Cold War from the British perspective.

American foreign policy quickly adopted a realist approach, exemplified by George Kennan's call for dealing in straight power concepts rather than idealistic advice. The war, particularly for the Western Allies, was framed as a moral struggle against absolute evil, leading to a selective memory that buried inconvenient facts and fostered an optimistic belief in human goodness and the triumph of democracy.

A narrative that can be called The Boomer Truth Regime, solidified an ideology of anti-fascism that became central to post-war Western states, originating at least six years before the war itself and championed by figures such as Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Roosevelt, in particular, was obsessed with aligning everyone against Germany.

Post-war Germany became a significant battleground for ideological influence.

In West Germany, the Allies embarked on a gigantic act of exorcism, destroying all traces not just of the Nazi past, but of Germany's military history. This involved banning and eradicating thousands of books, even melting down original print sets.

A mass psychological warfare campaign was implemented to reprogram the German mind, particularly in the West, which fostered distinct attitudes compared to East Germany, where such extensive mental reprogramming did not occur. Not even the Soviets could match the Allies mythological reprogramming efforts. East Germany, consequently, retained a stronger sense of national history and conservatism.

A key intellectual framework that underpinned the Cold War was Isaiah Berlin's concept of Two Concepts of Liberty, articulated in 1958. Berlin distinguished between:

Negative Liberty:

This concept emphasised freedom from external coercion and interference, allowing individuals to pursue their own desires without state control. Berlin advocated this as a safer alternative to the inevitable horrors of positive liberty, arguing that universalising individualistic freedoms would lead to societal openness.This perspective sought to educate a generation that revolutionary attempts, however romantic, would invariably culminate in disaster, thereby necessitating the restraint of power.

Positive Liberty:

Rooted in the French Revolution, this idea posited that true freedom required people to be transformed into better, rational beings, often through revolutionary transformation. However, Berlin warned this could lead to totalitarian outcomes, as seen in the Soviet Union's oppressive system.

The West promoted negative liberty as its defining ideal, leading to policies aimed at creating societies of self-seeking, almost robotic creatures whose behaviour could be scientifically analysed. This model, while promising prosperity and individual freedom, also laid the groundwork for new forms of social control and rising inequality.

Propaganda and Psychological Warfare

A central element of the Cold War was the sophisticated use of propaganda and mass psychology, particularly by the United States. Edward Bernays, a pioneer in public relations and Sigmund Freud’s nephew, played a pivotal role.

Having promoted America's war aims during World War I and witnessing President Woodrow Wilson's heroic reception in Paris, Bernays realised that mass persuasion techniques developed for wartime could be adapted for peacetime.

He coined the term "public relations council" and sought to manage and alter the thoughts and feelings of the burgeoning urban masses. The term "Propaganda" was deliberately replaced with "public relations" due to its association with German methods, marking a significant shift in communication strategies.

Bernays' approach, the Engineering of Consent, was based on the belief that people were not rational and needed to be manipulated through their inner fears for a higher truth, especially in the fight against Communism.

This involved manipulating public fears, such as the Red Scare, rather than appealing solely to rationality. This belief system permeated various government agencies, particularly the CIA, which actively explored psychological methods to alter memories and feelings to produce more controllable citizens, including illicit experiments with psychoactive chemicals such as LSD.

Post-World War II, this evolved into a sophisticated system of cultural imperialism, primarily spearheaded by the United States. The American corporate model, coupled with advanced advertising methods, began to influence and conquer Europe, shifting cultural preferences towards American products and ideals.

American corporate models and advertising methods, pioneered by figures like Bernays, were effectively used to supplant traditional British industries and cultural brands, beginning in the 1920s and accelerating after the war.

European societies gradually became Americanised, as rock and roll music and jazz, among other cultural exports, diffused across the continent. Critics of this approach argued that American cultural influence was more insidious than overt Russian aggression, acting as a poison disguised as friendship.

The Cold War saw the rewriting of World War II history to fit contemporary geopolitical needs. The Allied powers presented a sanitised version of the war as the good War, suppressing memories and narratives that contradicted an optimistic big picture.

World War II veterans, in many cases, expressed disillusionment with the post-war direction of their countries, particularly concerning multiculturalism and the decline of traditional values.

Efforts such as the "Anger Campaign," initiated by the BBC possibly under Winston Churchill's direction, were employed to demonise Germans and justify the bombing of cities, as significant public doubt existed about the war's necessity. Journalists, initially forced into cooperation and censorship, effectively suspended their critical function for national survival. This strategic suppression of truth prioritised national morale over factual reporting.

A critical aspect of this psychological warfare was the perceived difference in propaganda sophistication between East and West. Soviet propaganda was seen as crude and overt, relying on coercive methods. In contrast, American propaganda was subtle, creating a powerful presence that permeated public consciousness.

The Nuclear Age and Strategic Thought

The development of Atomic Weapons fundamentally altered the nature of conflict, leading to the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), where the use of nuclear arms by one side would guarantee the annihilation of both. This terrifying prospect led to an interest in intelligent machines and Artificial Intelligence to control situations and prevent mistakes, as their memories would be completely controllable unlike human beings. Despite the existential threat, a peculiar casualness towards nuclear war has emerged in modern times, contrasting sharply with the public's fear in earlier decades, often stoked by movies like 'Terminator', and political leaders lacking rational strategic thinking.

Military strategists at institutions like the RAND Corporation developed concepts such as Game Theory to mathematically analyse and anticipate enemy actions, believing it offered a rational approach to virtual war.

This rationalisation extended to military planning, where patriotism was replaced by a rational system based on numbers and terms like "collateral damage" were used to cover up horrible realities under bureaucratic jargon.

This strategic shift was further embedded by systems analysis, championed by figures like Alan Enthoven, which sought to eliminate emotional and subjective values from governance and replace them with rational, mathematically defined targets and incentives. This created a void into which later ideological agendas, such as politically correct language, could be inserted.

Geopolitical Strategies and Interventions

The Cold War was punctuated by proxy conflicts and covert operations:

Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989):

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, initiated partly due to internal military-industrial complex motivations and the fear of a pro-US shift in the region, became a disaster for the USSR. The US, under President Reagan, embraced a policy of "Project Democracy," covertly funding and training the Mujahideen as freedom fighters against the Soviets.This period saw an unusual alliance between American neoconservatives and radical Islamists, both sharing a goal to defeat the evil empire of the Soviet Union. The Soviets, despite their efforts to civilise a backwards country with modern technology and education, were ultimately defeated by the resilient Afghan society.Osama bin Laden, a former US ally in Afghanistan, came to view America's military presence in Saudi Arabia in 1990 as a corrupt Western takeover of Islam's heartland, turning him against the US.

Middle East Dynamics:

In the 1960s, Saudi Arabia, under King Faisal, became a key US ally, using its oil wealth to project influence. Faisal, while critical of Israel and the perceived Western bias in the Arab-Israeli conflict, maintained back-channel communications with the US, expressing concerns to President Lyndon B. Johnson about Arab perceptions of the Western stance.Islam, in this context, was viewed as a bulwark against atheistic communism, and the US-Saudi relationship endured as a firm, unquestioned alliance, despite the spread of fundamentalist Islam. Libya, under Muammar Gaddafi, became a theatrical bogeyman for the West.The US government, under President Reagan, pressured analysts to build a case against Libya, constructing a fictional world based on Gaddafi's rhetoric and presenting it as fact. This led to the 1986 bombing of Libya, which was inaccurate and resulted in civilian casualties, including children. Gaddafi capitalised on this attention to promote his Third Way as a global revolutionary theory.

Vietnam War (1955-1975):

The conflict, though seen by Americans as an attempt to end European barbarism, exposed a disconnect within the American establishment. It also marked a shift where the New Elites were not as invested in the war, contributing to the cycling out of the old WASP ruling class. The military's attempt to purge patriotism and adopt a dry, bureaucratic language was also notable.

Cuban Revolution (1959-1960):

Fidel Castro's alliance with the Soviet Union brought the Cold War threat closer to America, becoming a central issue in the 1960 presidential election.

Suez Crisis (1956):

This event highlighted declining British power and increasing American influence, as the US implicitly supported Nasser despite his alignment with the Soviets.

Albania Operations (1949-1951):

British Secret Service (MI6) and the American CIA (Operation BG Fiend) launched covert operations, including training exiles and attempting infiltrations, to overthrow the communist government of Enver Hoxha.Hoxha, a one true communist who ruled from 1944 to 1985, adeptly navigated shifting allegiances between Tito, Stalin, and China, eventually making Albania the first officially atheist country.The British operation, however, proved naive and ultimately failed, largely due to Soviet intelligence penetration and highlighting internal divisions within the British Secret Service.The BBC World Service was explicitly used for Cold War propaganda, though its effectiveness was sometimes hampered by logistical realities, such as lack of electricity in Albania.

Italian General Election (1948):

The CIA intervened to prevent the Italian Communist Party from gaining power, reflecting the Western fear of communist alignment with the Soviet Union.

Greek Civil War (1946-1949):

British intelligence and MI6 actively worked to counter communist influence, attempting to liberate Soviet satellites through any means short of war.

The Rise of Neoconservatism

Neoconservatism emerged from a group of renegade democrat supporters in New York who formed the "Committee on the Present Danger" in the mid-1970s.

They saw America as sleepwalking in the face of the Soviet threat. Figures like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney seized the opportunity during a crisis of confidence in America's political class after Vietnam and Watergate. They alleged that the Soviets were secretly building weapons with the intention of attacking America, a claim largely contradicted by the CIA's continuous monitoring.

The neoconservatives actively sought to change how America viewed the Soviet Union, using a group called Team B, composed of outside experts who re-evaluated CIA intelligence. Team B's findings, which claimed a hidden threat and fabricated evidence to support their assertions, were largely based on a fantasy world and were completely wrong in their specific allegations about Soviet weapon systems.

Despite this, the "Committee on the Present Danger" successfully publicised these findings, gaining support from politicians like Ronald Reagan. This strategy was influenced by Leo Strauss's philosophy, which held that it might not be true but it was necessary to re-engage the public in a grand vision of America's destiny that would give meaning and purpose to their lives.

This simplistic fiction portrayed the Soviet Union as the centre of all evil in the world, with America as its sole rescuer. The neoconservative agenda was not merely about foreign adventurism but also about gaining domestic power.

They consciously worked to marginalise libertarian elements within the political right and actively exaggerated the Soviet threat to justify the need for a strong, even totalitarian, state. CIA Director Bill Casey fabricated intelligence to support interventionist policies, demonstrating a preference for ideological narrative over factual accuracy.

End of the Cold War and Its Legacy

The Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 was primarily due to a decrepit system, decaying from within, a rotting economy, and a political process no longer believed by its people outside Moscow, rather than solely the actions of the American government.

Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, while encouraged by Western leaders like Margaret Thatcher, ultimately hastened the Soviet Union's demise. This triumph was widely interpreted in the West as the end of history, a concept popularised by Francis Fukuyama, suggesting that liberal democracy had emerged as the unchallenged and best arrangement of politics. This perceived victory, however, flattered America and the West, leading them to believe their own narrative and neglect unresolved structural issues for decades.

In Russia, this led to Shock Therapy, a radical economic restructuring based on negative liberty, which removed all state control and privatised industries. This, however, created new problems, as it failed to provide the security, dignity, and meaning that leaders like Vladimir Putin later offered to the Russian people, leading to a resurgence of Nationalism.

After the Cold War, the Neoconservatives continued their strategy of identifying and battling evil forces to maintain their power and America's perceived unique destiny. Saddam Hussein, previously an American ally, was recast as a key to pursuing the next stage of their transformation of the world.

The subsequent War on Terror used similar tactics of exaggeration and distortion to construct a powerful image of a global evil network, exemplified by Osama Bin Laden and radical Islamists, even though their movement had lost mass support. This continued reliance on imagining what the worst might be and applying that imagination upon the worst evidence became a defining feature of foreign policy.

The Cold War left a lasting impact on Western societies, permeating all areas of life, from politics to social norms. The methods of psychological warfare and mass control developed during this era, such as the Engineering of Consent, continue to influence public discourse, creating a permanent sort of derangement or mental illness based on shaky narratives and objective lies.

In the post-Cold War era, theorists such as Ulrich Beck described a runaway world, where societal complexities and dangerous modern technologies made it impossible for politicians to control outcomes or drive society forward.

This led to the emergence of a post-political world focused on management rather than grand ideological transformation.

The enduring myth of World War II as a clear-cut victory of good over evil, based on manipulated narratives, continues to influence contemporary society, constituting a psychological illness that pervades collective consciousness.

This selective historical memory, combined with sophisticated propaganda techniques, entrenches a simplified and often distorted version of reality.